What Laurie is Thankful for

Every Thanksgiving I try to remind myself of all the things a writer has to be thankful for. Let's see, I am thankful for cut and paste. Cool invention! I mean when your sentences rush onto the page all a kilter and you go to reread them and say, hello that's not in order, you can just cut the third one and make it the second or even put it first, where it should have been to start with. I'm also thankful for my thesaurus. When I have said "exchanged a glance" for the twentieth time in the novel and am about ready to puke over how unoriginal it sounds I just flip to page 27 and get observation, looking, viewing, seeing, witnessing, and espial. (What does espial mean anyhow?)
I am very thankful for my critique group. They never make me cry. And when I bring those five pages out with my shaking hands and croaking voice they are kind enough to only snicker occasionally.
But most of all as a writer I am thankful for this gift of creativity. Every day I get to go to a world of imagination and return to that time of childlike wonder.